


Clips and Clamps

by kisahawklin



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Anthropomorphism - Freefom, Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-03
Updated: 2009-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where they're all paperclips. *headdesk*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clips and Clamps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_wanlorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wanlorn/gifts).



"Don't call me butterfly!" Rodney snapped, straightening up. All these dull, small, _ordinary_ paper clips were making him claustrophobic. He made sure to stay upright; if he could keep his top poking out above the crowd of nondescript, smooth silver clips, he'd be sure to be picked for some important document eventually.

His design wasn't always duly appreciated, but he'd never been thrown away, like so many lesser models when they got slightly bent or scratched. Rodney wasn't new - he's far from shiny these days - but he was indispensable. He could hold big documents or small, but he was too valuable to be wasted on something trivial.

Often this meant he hung around in paper clip holders for long stretches, but the others never knew what to do with him so he usually kept to himself. It was easy when you were such a superior model.

This didn't mean no one ever approached him. Katie was a pink plastic clip who was kind of cute. They weren't really compatible, but Rodney liked her anyway. It's not like he _wanted_ to get tangled up with Katie like all those paper clips who couldn't seem to keep their ends to themselves... but a little interaction with Katie might have been nice.

He never got the chance to try anything. Katie was snatched up by the secretary's teenage daughter and put on a term paper about bridges. Bridges! It was ludicrous. Rodney hadn't even been able to say goodbye.

He went back to his solitary ways after that, determined to devote himself to his true purpose. He watched the documents go by, a few interesting single page memos, one small packet named simply _Training Manual_. It was bound with a boring black binder clip. Clearly it was training for something stupid, if they needed a plain old binder clip.

He was chosen for a small pack of papers going to the senator's office; he was distracted by the influx of other cross-clamps and some color-coated paper clips, so he didn't get to read more than Senator Kinsey's name across the top.

He didn't stay in Kinsey's office long - he was put in a bag with a bunch of other paper clips and binder clips and random other office supplies (boxes of staples, who thought that was a good idea?) and put in a storage closet.

It was definitely the most boring place he'd been yet - at least until one of the bright yellow binder clips took a shine to him. Her name was Jennifer, and she was touchy-feely - always clamping onto him when she thought no one was looking. It was kind of nice.

It was a pleasant stay in the storage closet, even if it was really long. When the doors opened and there was light for a few moments, he could see other bags of binder clips and paper clips and every other type of office supply you could think of.

There was a strange clip in the bag next to his, a gleaming blue-grey magnetic one. Every paperclip in the bag was stuck to him, and he seemed to find it distasteful, but Rodney supposed there was nothing he could do about that. Being that magnetic had its downside.

He must have noticed Rodney too at some point, because at some point in the dark, he heard Magneto calling.

"Hey butterfly!"

"Don't call me butterfly!" Rodney snapped. "My name is Rodney."

"Okay," the shiny clip said rather apologetically. "Hi Rodney. I'm John."

It was an ordinary name for such an interesting clip. Rodney wondered how many of them there were in the world. "Hi John."

It turned out John was funny - when Jennifer got jostled around to the other side of the bag, John kept him company with a running commentary about the box of pens and pencils on the other side of him.

When Jennifer eventually made her way back and clamped back on to him - he didn't remember her holding on quite so tightly before - he introduced them. Things went off after that; Jennifer kept herself clamped to him constantly, and John hardly spoke, and none of it his usual witty banter.

Rodney hadn't decided what he was going to do before most of the office supplies were transported to a conference room table filled with papers. There were dozens of piles of papers, everything from resumes to bulleted supply lists to outlines of worst case scenarios.

Jennifer was taken almost immediately for a packet of medical procedures; all the copies of that packet had yellow clips. She slipped a couple of times, trying to grab Rodney and bring him with her. Ultimately Rodney was left behind and he watched as clips and clamps were taken out and clipped to stacks of papers, but he was left behind every time.

John started up a running commentary, laughing about the plain paper clips scattered around the table like cockroaches. He and John were left in their bags with some of the more interesting clips - several cross-clamps like himself (including Radek, who was the only other clamp he'd met that wasn't a complete idiot, even though he was perfectly happy to be called a butterfly clamp) and a whole bag of magnetic clips like John, though none of them seem to have his blue-tinted color.

John seemed to know everyone in the other bag, he told Rodney every bit of gossip about every magnetic clamp as it was plucked from the bag. Rodney returned the favor by doing impressions of some of the dumber plain clips he'd met in his travels.

John was in the middle of a story about a magnetic clip named Lorne who got tangled with a whole bag full of the tiny colored binder clips when he was unceremoniously picked up and put on a stack of papers next to the one Radek was on.

Rodney watched as several more magnetic clips were put on the smaller sections of the packet, including Lorne and a few more of the clips John had told him about. It looked like each of those smaller packets were being connected with a cross-clamp. Rodney practically leapt into the hand of the person searching for a clip to bind John's packet. He fought off two other clamps - that stupid Kavanagh and one he didn't know - and was rewarded for his diligence by being clipped right next to John.

"Hey Rodney," John said, like he knew Rodney was going to find a way back to him. "Did you read what this is all about?"

Rodney hadn't had a chance to read the papers, beyond the bits he could read while they were collating the packets in the first place. "I was a little preoccupied with finding my way over here, thank you very much for noticing."

"Oh, I noticed," John said, and slipped one of his magnets over a bit. He was just barely touching Rodney, their edges pressed together perfectly. "I just thought you might like to know where we're going."

Rodney carefully, very carefully, shifted his arm over John. "Where are we going?"

John slid his magnet over a little farther. "_Atlantis_. Doesn't that sound cool?"

"Yeah," Rodney said, inching over until his entire front clamp covered John. "Cool."


End file.
